By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Val Verde County Commissioners members voted unanimously Oct. 11 to reconsider passing an order declaring the ongoing immigrant influx as an invasion.
County Judge Lewis G. Owens Jr. initiated a discussion of the matter during a standing agenda item on immigration issues.
Owens handed out a list of 33 of Texas’ 254 counties that have passed immigration orders. He also provided a map of where those 33 counties are located, and, although it was not mentioned in the meeting, only two of those counties – Terrell and Kinney – are on the Texas-Mexico border.
The court considered an order declaring an invasion in July, after neighboring Kinney County passed the order, but the order was never passed.
As Owens handed out the list of counties that have passed an invasion declaration, County Commissioner Pct. 3 Beau Nettleton asked County Attorney David Martinez, “Has the governor taken any action on those declarations as of now?”
“No,” the county attorney replied.
“What’s the benefit of a declaration of invasion?” County Commissioner Pct. 1 Martin Wardlaw asked.
“I think the intent is to enact something in the Texas Constitution that would allow the governor some additional authority, but he would have to take that action,” Nettleton replied.
“I think they were hoping, with this, if there’s funds out there, they would already be ahead of it,” Owens added.
“We had it on our agenda, but we then didn’t do anything with it. We were going to rewrite the order, and we haven’t proceeded with that,” Nettleton said.
“The order as it was presented to us by Kinney County had a lot of inaccuracies,” Martinez told the court.
“But we were going to rewrite something and re-look at it, but we never have gotten anything,” Nettleton said.
“So what are we going to do, rewrite the order?” Wardlaw asked.
“It’s up to you all,” Owens said.
“We can review it and see if we can come up with something more accurate,” Nettleton said.
“It’s certainly up to the court whether you feel it’s even necessary to pass (an order),” Martinez said.
“The issue we will run into is how to define an invasion, and that’s what I’ve been looking into, is how it’s been defined throughout these other counties, and the definitions they are relying on are kind of interpretations of interpretations, rather than going directly to, like, Black’s Law Dictionary and saying this is what the definition is and that’s where we’ll have the fight, eventually,” Assistant County Attorney-Civil John Clemmer told the court.
“Does the order hold any weight?” Nettleton asked.
“The governor can choose whether to take action on it,” Clemmer replied.
“So at the end of the day, it’s still the governor’s decision,” Nettleton said.
“Yes, sir,” Clemmer said.
“And he hasn’t done anything on the existing order?” Nettleton asked.
“No, sir,” Clemmer said.
“And until he does something, those orders are basically just a blank piece of paper,” Nettleton said.
“Judge, does it take a motion to rewrite the order?” Wardlaw asked.
“You just heard what they said, Commissioner Wardlaw, and in reality, we could write whatever we want to write, but it’s not really going to hold any water, according to our attorneys,” Owens said.
“If the court wants to try and write something, I would ask that you all do that in the form of a motion, then we can try to write something and bring something back,” the county judge added.
“I make that motion,” Wardlaw said, with Nettleton giving the second.
“To authorize the attorneys to draft something and bring it back to the court,” Nettleton added.
All of the commissioners voted in favor of Wardlaw’s motion.
Owens paused before giving his vote, saying, “I think it’s a waste of time, but if you all want to do it.”
He then also voted in favor of the motion.
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